A few weeks ago while perusing the Sunday Times Style I came across an article about iconic shoe maker Manolo Blahnik, after reading about the fashion legend and his new book I saw that there was a competition to win one of his original sketches!

Instantly my mind went into dream sequence mode, me and the Manolo sketch snuggled up watching the latest season of The Walking Dead, or the pair of us running hand in hand through an Austrian meadow, my Sound of Music dress being caressed by a light Tyrollean breeze as we frolicked in the fresh air. I was brought out of my reverie by the competition rules, upload an instagram picture with the hashtag #meandmymanolos, plus a fifty word description and a winner would be picked from the entries.

I mused over my image choice for a few days and carried out some research on Mr Blahnik, he sketches the shoe designs himself and chisels the first wooden last for each shoe which is incredible. Among his many achievements he also invented the swan pump! The swan pump got me thinking and I decided to illustrate my competition entry which you can see below next to the hand drawn sketch by Manolo Blahnik.

I uploaded my illustration and waited, constantly checking the hashtag to see who else had entered and feverishly reloading and refreshing the Sunday Times Style Instagram feed. While lying in bed a few Sundays ago while watching The Walking Dead with my beloved and our cats Frida & Diego I checked my Instagram feed…

LO AND BEHOLD I HAD WON THE COMPETITION!!! Not only that but Manolo Blahnik himself had picked my entry as the winner! We all leapt out of bed and did a victorious swan pump dance, the cats aren’t great at dancing on their back legs so we propped them up. The sketch will be framed and have pride of place in our living room and every time I look at it I will think what an honour it is that such an illustrious artist as Mr Blahnik picked my illustration himself and that in turn we have a piece of original fashion history adorning our walls.

I’m booking the flights to Austria next week and have made my wife and the cats some lederhosen out of the curtains.

It has been many moons since I sat atop the mountain known mysteriously as ‘the internet’ and howled the word, “BLOG” into the night sky. I rest back on my haunches and await your answering call. For hours I sit and wait, but it does not come. Dejected, my tail covered in moss and rabbit droppings, I slope off back down the hill with the full moon as my guide on the rocky trail known simply as, ‘despair.’

But I digress my friends, I have many things to tell you, firstly you are looking at my brand new blog on my brand new website! Designed and created by the excellent Mr Chris Burrows. You can find him here http://cburrows.co.uk and commission him to do amazing work for you.

In other exciting news I discovered that I have started sprouting grey body hair. My destiny is progressing at pace and the mantle silver fox will soon be mine.

Life has carried on much as when we last spoke, I have become the cat man, my two felines Frida & Diego continue to rule my daily routine, waking me up at 4am, running up vet bills faster than Kanye West in a champagne bar and conducting their lives in a way that defines the dictionary definition of the word ‘buffoonery’.

But let’s be clear, my cat passion extends only as far as my own Felis catus, there are a huge number of moggies living on my street and even now as I type this I have just witnessed a full on brawl through the window, two cats locked in a battle that resembled Prince Barin and Flash Gordon fighting to the death on the spiked and blood soaked duelling disc of Sky City. My love for Timothy Dalton knows no bounds, but that is a blog subject for another time.

The above sentence may not make much sense to you, but my cat Diego just typed it by walking across the keyboard, I can only assume it’s a secret message for his digital hairy brethren. I just hope it’s nothing inflammatory about dogs.

It’s Sunday which means I have to commence the ironing, a task made infinitely more enjoyable by the Desert Island Discs archive which I listen to whilst I assassinate the creases in my trousers. One of my favourite episodes is the Les Dawson interview, in which he didn’t give one serious answer all the way through, the man was a genius. You could get lost in the BBC archive for years and emerge looking much like Robinson Crusoe, craving baked beans and Steven Tyler’s Instagram feed. Another great listen was Dustin Hoffman’s Desert Island choices, notable for his obsession with The Frim Fram Sauce and Shafafa.

Anyway the steam iron needs turning on and my short shorts won’t iron themselves, I’m sure one day in the future, we will have self cleaning trouser that never crease, talking canines that will finally solve ‘science’ and foil suits with microwaves in the pockets so that we all become walking kitchens , but until then I must away to the task in hand and let the soft lilting theme tune Sleepy Lagoon composed by Eric Coates whisk me away to my own laundry desert island.